The Land of Broken Roads

Stories

### Chapter 1: Ancient Things Chapter 1

He knew something had changed before he even realized he was waking up. The air was flat and heavy now, fragrant with the scent of earth and humidity. It pressed on him like a blanket, so thick it felt like breathing took effort.

His arms and legs twitched, but there was nowhere for them to go. Something had happened, and he was half-buried, like an old stone sinking into the dirt.

He had been doing something important. He could feel that, feel the pressure of old urgency in his heart. But whatever it was seemed too distant to remember, already fading away.

How long had he been lying here? His eyes didn’t obey when he tried to open them. He tried again, but they were sticking to his eyeballs. Dry, as if they’d been closed for far too long. One eye cracked open, just a bit, and with more effort his eyelid peeled its way upward until he could see. Above him was nothing but indistinct, smudgy greens. Blurs with no definition. Why could he not see clearly?

He blinked and blinked again and tried to sit up. The dirt gripped him, holding him down with suction force. It clung to his skin, crumbling away as one arm came free, then the other.

He rubbed his eyes with his hands and wiped away something too thick to be tears. Some kind of slime. Revulsion gave him a burst of energy, and he tore himself from the ground, trying desperately to wipe whatever it was off his face and hands.

He could see now, and he instantly knew this was not a place he recognized. Nothing at all like where he’d just been, which was… he couldn’t remember. But now, all around him in every direction were ferns, tall as his waist. They grew so thick together they left no space between them. The land was flat as far as he could see, nothing but pillars of .

No, those were not pillars. They were too large for that. His eyes followed one up until it met the canopy overhead, where he saw great branches. Not pillars. Trees. Trees taller than reason, hundreds of paces apart. Impossibly tall. Too wide, far too tall. Nothing could be that large. His head swam just looking at them, just trying to comprehend their enormity.

His eyes drifted back downward, and he saw clear slime all around him in a thin puddle a foot or two wide, like he had fallen and burst open and that was his insides. It coated him in a layer two inches thick, except where he’d already wiped it off.

Wiping the clinging slime from his body and flinging it away, he saw he had nothing on. That wasn’t right either—there should be something he had on. Clothing. The slime was wrong. He should have clothing. Although the word was in his mind, when he tried to think what clothing looked like, or even what it was, nothing came to him. Nothing but blackest amnesia.

Nothing about who he was, or where he was from, or why he was here. He knew the words; any word he wished to remember came to him instantly. But no pictures came with them, nothing that could tell him what the words truly signified.

Home. A place a person lived. And what did it look like? What sort of place was it? Nothing.

Food. Cart. Street. Cat. Robe. Hand. Hand he knew, since he’d seen his. The only mental image he had of hands, though, were the brief glances he’d given them. Face? Nothing. He hadn’t seen it. He was human and didn’t even know what a human looked like, or what it meant to be one.

Wiping more clumps of slime from his thighs, he realized that his body was wrong. It was only a feeling, not any sort of reliable knowledge, but it wasn’t the body he expected. It was hairless from neck to toes, and that wasn’t right. Was it? He was smooth and a bit pale, and the proportions seemed off.

A child. He was a child, a little human still growing. Human progeny, not an adult like he was supposed to be. A grown-up. Right? What did that mean, exactly? He could feel the knowledge just on the edge of his mind, barely out of reach. The harder he struggled to grab it, the farther it slipped away.

He took several deep breaths, trying to force his mind to organize and settle by sheer willpower.

“Alright,” he said aloud. The sound of his voice unnerved him. It shouldn’t be so high. “Alright, where am I?”

Saying it helped him focus. His mind grew a bit clearer.

The slime on the ground was already evaporating, leaving clean soil as it dried up and disappeared. He watched it go. It evaporated out of his hair as well, unsticking it from his neck and forehead. Soon his skin was completely dry.

He turned in a slow circle, looking carefully into the distance for any sign of… of anything.

The forest was stunning, truly. Far, far above, the sky was all green, patterns of light and dark in the rich canopy of leaves. It was too high up for him to see what shape they were, but they caught every spare ray of light and let nothing reach the ground. Not a single sun ray anywhere. Just the dappled greens concealing the entirety of the sky. What was up there? What could live among such impossible heights?

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And below the green sky, a vast emptiness of nothing but pale gray tree trunks. A space larger than his mind could take in. And his mind tried—the sights above and below made him think he should be able to comprehend the space in between, to know and quantify it, but he couldn’t. It made him feel like nothing more than a speck.

Here on the ground, dark green ferns covered everything, bumpy as roiling ocean water at night. He paused, wondering what the ocean looked like, and how he knew that word. He had no idea, but he knew the ferns looked like one.

But his thoughts quickly fled each time he simply looked around. The beauty of it all nearly overpowered him. Such majesty, such perfect serenity! He dared not close his eyes and miss something. He had to look, to stare at the ferns and trees and far horizons fading in shadow until he understood.

He had to smell the heavy air, thick with humidity and wet dirt. To feel the earth beneath his toes, dirty and black. He had to take it all in.

The worry edging in at the periphery of his mind faded before the majestic silence of the forest. Nothing moved, not even a whisper. The forest reposed in grandeur, inviolable. Sacred. He listened for a moment, hearing the blood pumping in his ears and nothing else. It was so quiet.

Off in the distance, a bird cawed. He turned to look but couldn’t see it. Would he even be able to spot it, in such a huge space? What did a bird look like?

Either way, the sound relieved him at first, but that faded into subtle dread. The forest grew a shade darker. Potentially sinister. He was alone and recognized nothing, and there were living things out there he didn’t know about.

“I’m alone. Alone, alone…” he muttered, tasting the word. Indeed, were there other people at all? He thought about that for a moment. There should be. He didn’t know who they were, but some part of him remembered the feeling of other people around, in contrast to their stark absence now.

A bit of energy crept into him as he awakened further, and his thoughts grew more organized. He could not stand here in a stupor all day, after all; so, what now? He was a child, and that meant he was weak. He needed safety. Protection. Shelter. He would have to provide that for himself.

He also needed food and water.

He knew the words, but the more he tried to call up memories of what food was, what it looked like, how it tasted, the less he knew about it. He let go of the thought, afraid he would chase it away forever.

Time to get moving. He stuck his foot out, then gulped at the fear that he might have forgotten how to walk. No, no, he didn’t forget. Don’t think, just go.

He moved forward, relaxing as he found that walking came naturally. Ferns brushed against his skin as he pushed his way through the still, heavy air. Moving let him smell the humidity, the dark scent of decaying plant life, and richness of the soil below him.

Walking felt good. His body gathered energy as he went, waking up even more. He felt so alive, so much more than he remembered! Oh, what did he remember? That thought slipped away before he could look at it.

Oh well. He grinned and ran, the movement coming as natural as breathing. He sprinted as fast as he could through the ferns, dodging this way and that. The soft, black dirt was perfect for running on. Not a rock or stick to be found, nothing sharp to step on.

He hadn’t had so much energy before, so much life and spark. He found himself overjoyed to be so mobile, so free. He laughed and ran all the way around a tree trunk. It left him tired by the end, since he had to go all the way around the roots, too, and they were taller than he was, even fifty paces out from the trunk.

“Hey!” he shouted up the tree trunk. “Hey, is anybody up there?”

Of course there wasn’t, but it felt good to be moving and making noise. No wonder children loved playing! He shouted again, whooping loudly and listening for faint echoes from the tree trunks. The ferns swallowed most of the sound, but not all. His own voice returned to him each time.

He screamed as loud as he could, then listened to see how many echoes he could count. One, two, three, four, five…?

A voice came back to him that wasn’t his. His blood froze. What was that, that weird yell? How far away? He held his breath and listened.

It came again. “Where!” it said. The voice was high like his, but inhuman, a growl made of ten squeaks at different pitches. “Where!”

His eyes raced desperately over the greenery to find the source. It was down here with him, somewhere close enough to hear. Where was—

He spotted movement and shot down beneath the ferns. It was coming his way. What had he seen? A dirty green head, long pointy green ears. Something his height, but thicker and dangerous. Gods in Glory, what was that?

“Where!” it called again. “Good boy. Come out!”

The voice drove spikes into his mind. Terror greater than he could resist held him. He couldn’t move. He could only barely breathe.

“Come out! Good boy!”

Whatever it was, it was dangerous. He heard eager malice in its crackling, squeaky voice.

It was coming his direction. It might find him. What should he do?

“Meat! You want? You want? Good boy! Come out!”

Should he fight? No, his arms lacked muscle. Every bit of him was thin and soft. Not even his feet had toughened skin on them. I was strong once, he thought, before that crumb of memory slipped away from him. Maybe he could run? How fast was that thing?

The creature quit yelling. He listened with choking dread as it swished through the ferns, looking for him.

This was it. It was too close. He’d waited too long.

He stood to get a look and nearly fell backward in terror. A revolting green man-shaped thing with a pointed, inhuman face sniffed the air only five paces away. It saw him and fixed its shrunken red eyes on him with predatory exultation. It was only slightly shorter than he was, but thick and corded with muscle. Knotted fingers and toes ended in crumbling yellow claws, and long ears jutted out from its head and drooped at the end.

It smacked a long, heavy bone it carried into the dirt so hard the sound shook his lungs.

“Good boy,” it said, face curling into a wide grin of sharp, rotting, black-and-yellow teeth.

He was dead. His body moved before his mind did. He ran with all the strength he possessed. The monstrous little green man laughed and gave chase.

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### Chapter 2: Ancient Things Chapter 2

He sprinted as hard as he could. His body sparked with terror from toes to hair, and he ran wildly, desperately, holding nothing back.

The green-skinned monster was slightly slower, but only slightly. Fear of its teeth kept him running after his legs lost their strength and felt heavy, long after every part of him burned from exertion his body had never known. His feet pounded the soft dirt, making a strange rhythm with the creature’s snarls and panting.

How far ahead was he? Did he dare look back? No, he didn’t. His mind was clearing up a little now that the adrenaline was wearing off, but it was still back there, chasing him. The way it thrashed the ferns as it ran told him all he needed to know.

Run. There was no choice. Run or die. Run or die. Run or die. It turned into a jogging chant, repeating in his mind. Right left right, run or die, right left right—

Something hit the back of his shoulder and knocked him forward. Pain spread slowly but deep. For a moment he was sure a bone was broken, but he kept his feet under him. It hurt to swing his arm, but the joint still worked. Thank Grace.

He glanced back to see it picking up its bone club and noticed he was building a lead.

Hope put a spark into his tired, hollow legs and kept them going. He glanced back every three or four paces, watching for another toss.

It paid off. The green monster threw the club again, and he turned sharply to avoid it. The club flew harmlessly into the ferns, hopefully lost forever.

He kept running in the new direction and picked up his pace when he thought of a plan. Racing toward a tree, he leaped up and climbed over an enormous root, about halfway out where it was only a little taller than he was. He scraped his front from collar to shins on the flat gray bark, but he made it over faster than he expected.

There was no time to think about how much it stung.

The monster gave a frustrated squeal as it tried to follow him over the root, but its shorter legs and greater weight slowed it down.

The second root was more intimidating than the first, but scrapes were better than bites. Scrapes wouldn’t kill him. He only got high enough to barely scramble over, arms and legs slapping desperately on the wood.

He tumbled over the other side headfirst and rolled down into the ferns. From there, he made his way out into the open green expanse, keeping as low as he could while still moving quickly. He did his best to dodge between the plants without breaking them and leaving a trail, but it wasn’t perfect.

It was good enough. The green monster’s rage echoed off the world-sized trees as it thrashed through the ferns and screamed. He couldn’t do anything about his footprints, but it would take time to follow them, and that creature didn’t sound very patient.

Cold, unrelenting fear kept him going long after his body wanted to stop, long after the creature’s howls faded in the distance and ceased. But his new body could only handle so much, and when he collapsed, his arms were too weak to stop him from face-planting in the dirt.

Only a moment later, he found himself curled into a ball and crying softly. He was a child now, and there was more emotion in him than he had any power to control. It was an odd feeling—tightness in his chest and face, a lump in his throat, burning in his eyes.

There was nothing he could do to stop it. He cried quietly, slowly, until his emotions were as empty as his arms and legs. After that, he lay for a while and rested, contemplative and miserable.

“I hate this,” he whispered into the dirt, when he felt he could speak without crying again. He had no word for the creature, which made him think he’d never seen one before. The unpleasant shade of its green skin didn’t fit with the gentle ferns and eternal trees. It seemed as foreign to the forest as he was. It was some kind of horrible, misshapen man, and it knew a few words, which meant it was smart enough to be dangerous. Plenty dangerous.

“I really, really hate this,” he whispered again. His mind refused to relax and give him peace. If there was one monster, were there more? And what else was out there? What was it doing here? Did it appear when he did?

In fact, had he even existed before today? Some words strutted through his mind, but he couldn’t make sense of them. Resurrection, spontaneous generation, temporal displacement …

He had no idea what the words meant, probably because he was thinking about it. He had to let a word come by itself, or it would escape without being understood.